Week 4 Day 2

Tuesday was another less intense day...I think this week was pretty light on excursions overall, but that was good especially since this was definitely the most academically demanding week so far.

In class we learned more about the cases, but unlike before, we were doing two at a time, so I kept on getting confused about where to put which endings. I mentioned before that Russian has six cases, and before coming I had read a little about which one is which, but here they refer to them solely by numbers, so that was also something new to get used to:

1=nominative (the form words are normally in)
2=genitive, which expresses possession
3=dative, which is used mostly for indirect objects
4=accusative (mostly used on direct objects)
5=instrumental (I'll be honest, I have no clue what that is)
6=prepositional, which describes place/location

So far, we’ve learned about all the cases except #5, so I feel like I’m in a pretty good place for now.

We had an independent lunch, so me, Sara and Cameron decided to go to Andy’s Pizza because it was fast and close to the university, and since it wouldn’t make sense to eat in the center since the museum we were going to wasn’t that close to where we could eat. I got myself a pasta and lemonade, and we were able to eat and still get to where we had to be early, so it all went well!

The lemonade.
My pasta.

We got to the Pushkin house a bit early, so we had some time to walk around the grounds, which included a garden that had a bust of Pushkin.

Pushkin!

Since Pushkin isn’t that well known in the U.S., I’ll steal Renee’s analogy to explain him as kind of the Russian language equivalent of Shakespeare—there are people who learn the language solely to be able to read his poetry.

We had tour of the house and museum that was about an hour long, and the guide recited some poems, and although (once again) we weren’t able to understand everything, the things we did manage to catch were pretty interesting, and although we were all kind of tired, it was still enjoyable. Unfortunately, you had to pay to take pictures inside, so I only got one of the outside.

Front: the house where Pushkin actually lived for three years.
Back: the museum (also a house, but not where he lived).

By the time we finished up, it was too late to go and do a whole other activity, but still kind of early to head home, so we went down a few blocks to a French cafe that some of the others had passed on their way there, and got ourself some food while we chatted and got some homework done. 

I got a chocolate lava cake with ice cream (which was good), but some of the others got crème brûlée, which they lit on fire at our tables!

My dessert.
Someone’s homework with a flaming crème brûlée in the background.

Wile we were there, it started to rain, not quite as hard as the day before, but still enough that our rain jackets and umbrellas (I had both this time!) didn’t quite manage to keep us fully dry. We walked a few blocks to the bus stop, and got home somewhat slower than usual. Unfortunately, on the walk home my shoes got drenched again, meaning that now both my pairs of walking shoes were too wet to wear (the ones from yesterday still weren’t dry). 

Once I got home, I took a shower, finished my work, had dinner, and read a little bit before bed. 

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 17, 2018 at 7:30 PM

    The instrumental case is for three things: 1) when the noun is being used (like an, er, instrument) to carry out some task. If you can use the phrase “by means of,” then there is a good chance the noun goes in the instrumental case. Example: I swept the porch with a broom. “Broom” in this sentence would be in the instrumental case.

    Or 2) when you are talking about working in a particular profession (я работаю дипломатом)

    Or 3) when you are referring to something that has changed its state or characteristics. When I (a male) was young (but I am no longer): когда я был молодым...

    See how easy that is?

    ReplyDelete

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